Journalist Jojo Robles in his Facebook page urged the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines to let the owners of Philippine Daily Inquirer and ABS-CBN answer the charges thrown at them by President Rodrigo Duterte.

NUJP previously fired at Duterte after the president accused both agencies of being unfair and biased.

Duterte recently accused the owners of PDI to have caused tax evasion and threatened to stop the operations of ABS-CBN after a campaign advertisement that he has paid to be aired during campaign period was not shown in television.

Robles said that the real problem is the abuse of power by certain media owners.

"The rights of the ordinary media workers or the constitutional guarantee on freedom of expression are not threatened here. The issue is the abuse of power by certain media owners -- a serious charge that involves only the highest news executives, assuming you can call these media bigshots ordinary working journalists at all."

He added that democracy is not the issue.

"So please quit making this a "democracy is dead" thing, as Rappler's boss calls it. (By the way, who owns Rappler, really?)"

Duterte recently said that he will block the renewal of ABS-CBN franchise when it expires on March 30, 2020.

He said this is because the agency does not adhere to journalistic standards.